This invention is a heat transfering device that serves the function of radiating heat, and the additional function of absorbing heat radiated to it.
The most prevelent application of this invention is envisioned as that of heating and cooling an environment for human comfort as part of a system wherein warm or cool fluid is furnished this panel at low pressure.
Hitherto, hydrant heat transfering panels have been made either by embedding conduit in a building structure, or applying panels with built-in conduit. In either case the enclosed fluid passes through conduit in a serpentine or tortuous path transfering heat to the surrounding mass from which it either radiates or passes into the air in the space to be conditioned, thence finally to bodies in that space. Due to the numerous media, including in most cases finishing materials, through which the heat must be transferred, and to the considerable mass which must be affected, a relatively great temperature diferential between the fluid and the space is required, and the response to desired temperature is slow. Slow response is not only an incovenience in itself, but tempts the user to exaggerate the setting of his thermostat to speed up the response, causing the mass of the panel to overreact. The result of this human phonomenon is to expand an excess of energy, and accomplish a widely fluctuating temperature.
Such panels, in their complexity, offer difficulty in their construction, often manifest in high incidence of deficiency in manufacture, and unjustified expence. The nature of this serpentine or tortuous path used in such panels is such to offer excessive resistance to the flow of the enclosed fluid thereby rendering such panels inappropriate to applications where an efficient heat exchange is sought to be accomplished by a fluid at low pressure and low temperature differential to the space to be effected.
Experience has shown that with the passage of time clogging may occure within such panels obstructing the fluid flow and rendering the entire panel inoperative.
There can be little doubt that the difficulties besetting current radiant heating panels, the inconvenience of frustratingly prolonged response time, and the widely fluctuating temperatures arising therefrom, combined with the inordinate expence involved are largely the reason why hydrant radiant panels are not in widespread use. This, despite the fact that heating and cooling by radiation is the most comfortable and, theoretically, most efficient system known.